Лоуренс Монро Клаубер: Герпетолог и инженер-электрик

American herpetologist (1883–1968)
Laurence Monroe Klauber (December 21, 1883, in San Diego, California – May 8, 1968), was an American herpetologist and the foremost authority on rattlesnakes. He was the first curator of reptiles and amphibians at the San Diego Natural History Museum and Consulting Curator of Reptiles for the San Diego Zoo.

Before becoming a herpetologist, Klauber worked for many years with the San Diego Gas & Electric Company. He worked his way up in the company from his first job as electric sign salesman thru electrical engineering positions; ultimately he became president in 1947, then chairman of the board of directors, a position he held from 1950 until his retirement in 1953. Klauber held 9 U. S. patents (2 jointly) for inventions relating to energy transmission.

In 1923, Dr. Harry M. Wegeforth of the newly opened San Diego Zoo asked Klauber to identify several species of snake recently acquired. In his research and field work, Klauber is credited with identifying 53 new taxa of reptiles and amphibians (such as Arizona elegans candida, Sonora palarostris, Pituophis catenifer pumilis, and Charina bottae umbratica) and has been recognized by his fellow herpetologists by having had 14 new taxa named after him (such as Chionactis occipitalis klauberi, Crotalus lepidus klauberi, Ensatina eschscholtzii klauberi, Hemidactylus klauberi, Hypsiglena torquata klauberi, Sauromalus klauberi, Sphaerodactylus klauberi, and Terrapene nelsoni klauberi ). He donated approximately 36,000 specimens to the San Diego Natural History Museum, and his extensive personal library and field notes were donated there upon his death. Klauber's rattlesnake collection, containing over 8,600 specimens, comprises the core of the museum's Herpetology Department collection; at over 9,300 rattlesnake specimens, it is one of the largest rattlesnake collections in the world.

In the early 1930s, Klauber proposed a geometric arrangement of primes not unlike Ulam's spiral. In 1932, Klauber presented a paper on a triangular, non spiral matrix to the Mathematical Association of America demonstrating geometric regularity in the distribution of the primes. The lines of primes in the Klauber triangle meet at 60° angles, while in an Ulam Spiral, they meet at 90° angles. Klauber's interest in mathematics—and the extensive samples of rattlesnakes that he accumulated for study—led to his most significant contribution to herpetology, the application of statistical methods to aid in the classification of reptiles. He pioneered the use of quantitative analysis in herpetology to determine variation in snakes and to weight the differences between species and subspecies.